The Fourfold Roots of Everything
by Avariel600
Summary: A NWN 2: Mask of the Betrayer fanfic, with a new female PC. Seperate from the other NWN 2 fics I've done, this follows the first expansion storyline.
1. On the nature of elements

I never quite understood the earth elementals.

It was like being caught up in a private vendetta, except that the war I found myself in had no reason or logic behind it, and the creatures caught up in it were the same; pure emotional extremes, with no rhyme or reason to their methods, other than they were what they were and they obeyed the natures carved out for them.

There was a touch of Air in my blood; a genasi, we're called, not so uncommon that the unique heritage I carried was overtly persecuted or marked for scrutiny. I did wear hoods rather often, though, to hide the soft glow in my eyes that replaced the blackness normally marking the pupils of Primes. And to keep my hair as tame as possible. Adventuresses do think about their hair, you know; I thought of it often, in my struggles along the Sword Coast. _"Hells take it, not Garius again, we're all going to die...how's my hair?"_ The soft, deep blue tendrils were never still, never smooth; they swirled gently, as if tossed by an unseen wind, giving me a continuously wild look that was completely inappropriate for knighting ceremonies, although quite in keeping with desperate Generals of ragtag Greycloak armies and crumbling Keeps. And most definitely suitable for a ravager of spirits, a devourer of dreams.

Despite the gaping blackness in my chest that yearned for the sustenance of innocent souls, I had to admit that Rashemen and it's lack of paperwork was a balm to my suffering.

But where was I? Ah...earth elementals.

They popped up at random, you see. Attracted by the air magic that made my appearance strange and exotic and my hair eternally a mess. It didn't matter what I was doing; walking a road, bathing in a stream, sharpening my weapons, eating, sleeping, breathing; I could have been at the forefront of an organized rally for the rights of earth elementals to choose which spellcasters to obey instead of being compulsed like mindless animals into servitude, and they would still rise up from the ground at the back of the crowd and attack me in an instant. Such is their nature, to respond to mine. They can't help it; they cannot fight it.

Such are the laws of the universe, or so I am told.

It stopped surprising me long ago, not long after I had taken to the road along the Sword Coast to Neverwinter with a dwarf named Khelgar and a rogue named Neeshka. A druid latched on to us, too, during that journey, but that is another tale. It seems the lack of Keep-organizing paperwork has spurred me to write...but not that story. It still aches in my heart, to remember that story.

Safiya asks me what I'm scribbling at one night, camped a day out from the Wells of Lurue. She's fiddling with a staff we...er..._discovered_ in Shadow Mulsantir the day before, trying to pick it apart and determine it's makings and workings.

"You're going to break it."

Safiya snorted; she managed to make the crude noise sound condescending and elegant at the same time. "I know what I'm doing. And what _are_ you writing? There have been nights when all you've talked about is how much you want to camp so we can sleep, and then once we do you sit for an hour or so writing away."

I glanced at her above the edge of the shoddily bound sheaf of papers propped against my knees. "It's my last will and testament. I'm passing everything to Okku when the spirit-eater curse finally consumes me."

Okku grumbled at me where his colorful, glowing form was stretched out next to the fire. "I have no use for your possessions, little one."

"You lie, great bear; I've seen how you've been eyeing the Nightengale's Mask Madga forged for me...it's the sparkles, isn't it?"

Safiya choked, her sudden fit of coughing sounding suspiciously like laughter. Okku's white, pearlescent eyes gleamed at me consideringly as a voice from the darkness called out smoothly, "You speak as if that great offense to the eye has any sort of aesthetic sense." Gann appeared at the edge of the camp, a brace of jackrabbits held casually in one hand. "He may want a cut of your calf, or maybe your thigh, to gnaw on once the curse has claimed you."

"Are you sure it's Okku that's taking an interest in her thighs, Gann?" Safiya's voice was shrewd and slightly teasing, and the hagspawn seemed to pause as two sets of curious female eyes focused on him. Okku merely snorted and lay his head down against the ground; the bear god claimed he didn't sleep, but he fell into a sort of reverie every night that seemed like sleep to me. _He sure _snored_ like he was sleeping..._

"I wouldn't blame you," I said offhandedly, after a moment. "My thighs are quite exquisite."

"While they bear notice, I'm sure, they're nothing so remarkable as to cause me to covet them."

"So you covet more than just them?" I was grinning, albeit my cheeks were a little flushed; and despite the fact that my eyes were drawn down onto the parchment in front of me, my quill was doing little more than drawing squiggles, now.

Gann's low, lazy chuckle rippled the air around the campfire. "You have a healthy sense of humor, to think that I would covet you, eater-of-spirits. Of course, if your dreams become too much to bear, I will of course rescue you from them, for I, at least, am strong enough to control them...whereas you blurt them aloud, voicing your insatiable desires for me in the hopes that I may turn a favorable eye in your direction."

I quirked an eyebrow in _his_ direction as I set aside the journal and pushed my legs down into my sleeping roll. "That was quite a mouthful...your rebuttals are getting longer, Gann."

"He likes the sound of his own voice, and you indulge him, little one." Okku's voice was barely audible, as he had pressed both massive paws over his snout, nearly covering his face. "If you don't stop listening to him, he'll continue on and on, and we will have to silence him some other way." One of his eyes winked open for a moment to look at me. "Just say the word."

Gann laughed as he began cleaning and skinning the rabbits; in an hours time he'd have the bones stripped of flesh and the meat cut into neat little strips, hanging high above the fire so that just enough heat would dry them out. I was growing a distinct dislike for jerkied meat, and I sighed as I lay down against the hard ground, Gann's voice rippling over the crackle of the fire. "Kushiel knows better than to banish a specimen such as myself to your unforgiving jaws, Okku. Why, if it weren't for my-"

"Shut up, Gann," Safiya said amiably, setting the staff aside and curling down into her own sleeping roll. "And wake me when it's my watch."

"Oh, I shall, great wizardess, for your dreams hold-"

"Shut up, Gann," I mumbled drowsily, and I dozed off to the sound of his light laughter and the deepening snores of the bear spirit across the fire.

_o o o o o _

Two hours after we broke camp and started down the road again, the earth elementals attacked. I think Safiya is now merely travelling with me because I'm an excellent source of earth essences for her experiments. It was nothing but a nuisance to me; I couldn't gain and sustenance from them, and so I had to supress the hunger yet again, feeling the yawning howl in my spirit abate for the moment.

When we were done collecting the remains of the earth spirits, we regrouped and prepared to get back on the road. I pulled back my hood and smoothed down the wild, blue locks, my voice light and my heart heavy. "How's my hair?"


	2. On hunger

It was eerie, this place. There were memories, substance...a weight to the air that seemed to watch me as I walked by. _Slyph-child, we know you...we know what you are, destroyer of souls..._

To be honest, the entire country of Rashemen made my skin crawl a little. Everything seemed sentient, as if the very rocks were watching you, and the secret misdeeds you thought no one saw were actually witnessed by an entire congregation. Prolonged exposure could make one jittery; even I was beginning to feel it, and the Wells of Lurue seemed to be exponentially worse. No wonder the people of Rashemen were ruled by fear...they were never, ever alone.

We hadn't encountered suitable spirits since we left Mulsantir, and I could see it in the way Safiya kept glancing at me, her smooth, delicately tattooed brow furrowed in worry, or the way that Gann was uncharacteristically chivalrous. He kept suggesting that he carry some of my gear, until I was load-free and walking with only my light, magical armor to weigh me down. It was an uncommonly sweet gesture from him, and I found myself warming up to the idea of Gannyev, as a whole.

When he thought I wasn't looking, he pawned some of my gear off to Okku to carry, and that dampened the gesture, slightly. But the gesture was still wholeheartedly Gann, even though the chivalry part of it was savagely slaughtered.

Okku's ancestors met us at the top of the hill, where the waters had gathered and made a clearing of shimmering, sweet-watered ponds that began rippling gently as I approached, the silent winds that followed me tossing their surfaces in an invisible breeze. As soon as I laid eyes on the ephemeral, glowing forms of the telthor bears, the hunger inside of me stirred suddenly, howled, filling me with such an insatiable longing that I nearly fell upon them instantly. Safiya saw me lurch, saw me press a hand over my eyes and back away a few steps.

"It's getting worse," she whispered, her eyes darting between me and Okku, as the bear god began speaking with the telthor spirits.

I grit my teeth, almost not hearing the conversation; it sounded as though Okku was being chastised, and the topic of conversation was probably me. "Yes," I answered back lowly. "We need to finish here, quickly...tell Okku to hurry."

"I-"

"Spirit-Eater!" One of the telthor bears that stood majestically before Okku was calling for me, and I shot an uneasy glance at Safiya before walking forward. I caught a shimmer of my reflection in the well; hollow-eyed, gaunt faced. My glowing eyes were feverishly sallow, the light turning a sickly yellow instead of the normal clear gray. I looked like death...which made sense, of course. I was dying, after all.

"What would you have of me?"

"What is this oath, that my grandson speaks of?" The bear loomed in front of me, massive even in his spirit form. "This nonsense that he claims, this reason that he bows to the whims of an abomination like an obedient cub-ling?"

"He doesn't _bow_ to my whims," I snapped; irritable, short-tempered..._hungry_. "I saved his life; I could have ended his existence, but I..." I faltered...the hunger inside of me faltered as well, confused. "...couldn't. He is an honorable creature." My eyes flashed, and I took a menacing step forward. "And braver than _you_."

"He doomed our entire tribe," the bear thundered, and Okku interjected, stepping forward to stand at my side determinedly; gods but it only made it worse, having his burning spirit presence next to me...all I had to do was reach out... "His 'sacrifice' poisoned the sacred barrow of our people...they went mad, Okku! Ravening, wild beasts, and they died as such! And you...you murdered them all.."

"Enough!" There was a tinge of half-panic in my voice; I was beginning to lose what little control I had left. "What would you have done, 'great ancestors?'" I took another step forward, and I could hear Safiya and Gan forming together behind me..._preparing for a fight. _ "Let the spirit-eater roam free across the lands?"

"Great Wotomo, it was our honor to guard the wilds of Rashemen, to guard it's people and keep them safe! It was our honor to die the way we did to keep the spirit-eater curse contained." Okku's voice was a low, menacing growl, his massive barrel-chest rumbling as he spoke. "I would do it _all_ again."

"Contained...it wanders the lands again, Okku, in the form of this girl next to you! Your sacrifice was for naught." This from the telthor bear to the right and a little behind Wotomo. I could sense their hackles rising, feel their energy crackle between the tree of them. "But you have brought her here before us, now; help us destroy her, once and for all, and we will welcome you back to the Wells...the Queen of Talking Beasts will forgive you your oath."

Okku reared up, as did the bear that had just spoken, and they looked ready to leap on one another, but Wotomo's voice, quietly, gave them pause. "Stop." The wind blew through the trees as silence fell, Wotomo regarding us with his faded, ephemeral eyes. My heart pounded in my ears as he spoke next. "There are laws, Okku, but...you are right. We have been too long without flesh and fur; our minds are full of words." The great spirit seemed to sigh, heavily. "Not dreams." There was another long pause, and I felt Safiya and Gann behind me slowly relax their stances.

When Wotomo spoke again the resignation in his voice was colored with a firm steely determination. "But you have doomed your race Okku, and that cannot be ignored; you are allowed to walk your own path, but...do not seek us out again." With those harsh words, the telthor bears began fading from view, and I heard the barest echo of sorrow in Okku's words as he murmured, lowly, before they disappeared altogether, "Farewell, grandfather."

The Wells were instantly different; the constant watchfulness that plagued the landscape of all Rashemen was suddenly gone, and it felt, for once, like a normal glade of trees with the most beautiful sparkling wells dotting the fringes.

The silence was deafening.

Okku moved off a little ways and sat down by the edge of one of the wells, and Safiya and Gann both approached me. "Give him time," whispered Gann. "We'll move out soon, but I can feel his hurt from here."

"This was pointless," I said in disgust, and both of them looked at me in surprise. "All we managed to accomplish was to win a show-down against Okku's ancestors; we've learned nothing." My eyes traced the white, color-shot shoulders of the great spirit bear as they slumped in the sunlight. "And I'm still not even sure we won."

"There's still the waters," Gann said to me quietly. "It won't hurt us to stay here until the morrow, find out what we can about this place. I can sense the dreaming undercurrent here...there is something..." His handsome, pale face lost all expression for a moment, and his clear eyes got that fuzzy, inwardly-searching look that it always did when he was...communing with spirits, or whatever. I still wasn't positive what he actually _did_, but it always produced astounding results. "When we get a chance, I think we should examine the wells."

A long, sorrowful howl filled the air, and suddenly a shimmer of ghostly forms burst through the trees and barreled towards us. We all whirled around as the telthors charged, a slavering, furious she-bear spirit heading the pack, and I felt a whirling howl in my own head, like the rise of a great storm...

I threw myself forward, running almost joyously towards those that would end us, and even with Okku's anguished, furious shout of "NO!" echoing through the maddening cacophony that claimed my ears, I couldn't help it, couldn't stop it. I gathered the hunger deep within the hole that had been my beating, bleeding heart, and with nary a thought for remorse or honor I spread my starving arms wide, and I fed.


	3. On focus

My mind was still disoriented from the dreaming; the shadowed caverns, the runes...the boy. The former spirit-eater led me through the semi-familiar maze of tunnels, to the very familiar Shadow Reaver. I remembered how long it took me to destroy a Reaver the last time I had faced them, and now it was almost too easy. Not as humdrum as killing off earth elementals, perhaps, but I was relatively unimpessed once the battle was over.

And then I had faced the boy. _His brother._

His words were cryptic at best, which seemed to be the norm when speaking to dream spirits and old ghosts, as I was coming to realize. But he had something for me...just like the dreamed image of the Red Woman had. A thin slip of mask, sickly looking, reflecting nothing but absorbing all light that touched it, and as soon as my fingers grasped it I felt the edges of the dream begin to slip away.

It was sluggish in returning to the waking world, and I couldn't let go of the thought that the dream-child that had greeted me in the center of that whirling black barrow had been expecting something when he saw me, and whatever it was, it hadn't happened.

I opened my eyes...but instead of being back at the Wells, I was lying down in a still, gray landscape, soft, swirling fog surrounding me. I sat up, rubbing my head..._this wasn't right..._

"Ah, Kushiel. A...side trip, so to speak." Gann appeared from the mist, looking relatively pleased with himself. For a moment I felt a flash of fear jolt through me..._what was he doing? Had he tricked me?_

But then he knelt by my form, pressing a hand against my shoulder as I tried to push myself up to my feet. "Hold, a moment. I wished to see if we could maintain traces of these elusive dreams even after the contact has been severed. An experiment, call it."

I arched a brow up at him; the strange mist that surrounded us seemed to curl around him like a playful pet greeting it's master after a long seperation. "Well?" I glanced around me; our surroundings seemed relatively unchanged. "It doesn't look like we've managed to hold on to anything."

Gann's eyes got that strange, inward look to them before he shook his head slightly. "This time, no; but I caught the trail ends of these latest dream thoughts before they fled, so perhaps if we get another chance, I will be more prepared."

His hand was still touching me. "So..ah...should we...you know, wake up then?"

He laughed softly. "So eager to get back to the world where earth and air collide, are you? I figured you'd appreciate the peace and quiet."

"I know for a fact that peace and quiet do not exist simultaneously with you, Gannyev."

He kissed me.

It was so unexpected that for a moment all I did was stare at the tops of his eyebrows as he tilted his head and pressed his mouth against mine, gently plying my lips apart with his tongue. My mind instantly began rationalizing; _A thing such as a kiss can dance in the thoughts of anyone, be it someone pining after an unrequited lover or simply a fleeting thought one gets when they glance at someone they deem attractive. And of course, one could not...refrain from such thoughts, especially with Gann looking the way he did..._

His hand lifted slightly, tangling into the soft strands that swirled behind my eartip, cupping my face upward so that my mouth opened fully under his onslaught. All right, so I had thought about kissing Gann before, but...this was...

_Oh my._

"Well." He pulled back after a moment. "That was _most_ interesting. I've been wondering whether or not an air genasi spirit-eater would react the same as a farmer's daughter to the soft suggestions I can whisper; your dreams are so wide and deep and treacherous, like a great storm. I am curious to see if I would survive them." His eyes gleamed at me, and he seemed immensely pleased with himself. "So far I seem unscathed."

The look of surprise that blossomed on his face was one I would treasure forever.

My back flattened, and then arched against the dreamscape grass as my hands snaked around his head and pulled him down, my mouth fusing against his. He smelled like the dewgrass, the musk of wild animals and crushed leaves clinging to him, his weight heavy, more substance than dream as he pressed down on top of me. The back of my hand met the ground, his palm pressing mine flat and fingers intertwining. The dreamscape shifted, roiled around us, the sound of a faint wind growing louder and fast approaching. This place was made by his shaping, and as his tongue tasted mine and his hands pressed me to the dirt and to his body, I realized that something was happening that Gann had boasted would never happen in the world of dreams, the world where he reigned unopposed. The master dreamwalker, the weaver of fantasies, was losing his focus.

He was losing control.

He must have realized it as soon as I did, for the gray, whirling mist dissipated almost instantly, and the landscape fell solid and serene once again. He pulled back, his breath heavy, his eyes full of shadows and an incredulity that pleased me to no end. His pupils were dialted until the clear gray of his eyes was nearly swallowed by two wide, black pools.

"Still unscathed?" I breathed out.

Gann's face furrowed into an angry scowl, and the grey landscape was replaced with blackness.

o o o o o

My eyes snapped open. Safiya was sitting off to the side with the campfire already roaring, and there was no sign of Okku as I sat up, rubbing my head. My other hand was curled around something, and as I brought it up I felt the thick, rubbery texture of the mask piece the boy had given me.

"That's two," Safiya said evenly. Then, she caught the look on my face, and heard Gann's eloquent curse as the hagspawn awoke, apparently still furious. "What is it?"

"Nothing of consequence," he snapped...uncharacteristic for him, for he was normally the very picture of level-headed amusedness, observing the world coolly...without taking part in it himself. Safiya blinked at his rudness, but he merely stood and stalked off into the woods immediately surrounding the wells. She looked back to where I was standing, brushing myself down and examining the second mask piece. "Well?"

"Don't ask me." My voice was brisk, as well. "You'd think he's the one that's contracted an ancient curse."

"Ah."

I eyed her suspiciously, but her face was the picture of innocence. After a moment of silence in which she turned back down to some artifact she was fiddling with and I sat down by the fire, I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Where's Okku?"

"Still not back." Safiya's dark eyes glanced at me breifly. "He will be. He's..."

"...completely irascible?"

"Well, that as well. We all know you couldn't...help yourself." Safiya's eyes were strangely compassionate, but I could see the lurking edges of uncertainty that touched their corners as she looked at me. "But it touches him more than most...he sees the spirts of this land as kin."

"Yes, I've received this lecture before. I'm the bogeyman."

"You're just a vessel; this isn't _who_ you are...aha!" Something clicked in her hands and Safiya held the amulet aloft, it's center gleaming brightly with a pale yellow stone. "Try this on for size."

I took the leather thong that hung fron her grasp and stared at the amulet for a moment. "What is it?"

"Something that'll help with the elementals, hopefully. We studied the collision of elements when I was a child, but I've never actually seen it in action before. It's rather fascinating to watch." She glanced at my face and coughed. "Ah. But yes, this should dampen the antagonistic attraction to you. At least...I think it will. And if not at least the battles will give me more essences to work with, yes?" Safiya managed a smile at me, her teeth perfect and white against the firelit backdrop. "Come on, let's work on some of those focusing techniques I showed you."

Half an hour later, I crawled into my bedroll, my mind exhausted but finally stilled from it's earlier chaos...and thankfully, I didn't dream.


	4. On fate

The elementals caught us again outside of Mulsantir.

I think Safiya was more dissapointed than I was that her amulet hadn't worked. She took it back from me surlily and stuffed it away into whatever pocket she had reserved for "things to be tinkered with and/or beaten into submission later."

Okku had taken this chance to speak; "You can't stop them from coming, Thayvian. It's her very nature to draw their hostility, and this land is so close to the Earth and it's spirits." Okku's pale eyes rested on me semi-accusingly, and I avoided his gaze. _Well_. No forgiveness from that one, yet.

Gann was uncharacteristically silent, as well, as we finally trudged through the gates of Mulsantir, brushing off the last few crumbs of shattered earth elemental from our armor. Kaelyn was waiting for us, her delicately featured face grim. "I've discovered something," she said softly as we wearily gathered around her. "But I didn't pry deeply, as I assumed you would wish to accompany me."

"Accompany you where?" My eyes were fixed on the Veil already, where Magda probably had hot food waiting and a comfortable bed that was at least five inches off the hard ground...

Of course, these fantasies were dashed as Kaelyn turned and began walking down a side alley, her voice beckoning. "I'll show you."

o o o o o

My fingers brushed against the mosaic softly.

Everyone was standing back a few paces from me; I could feel their unease, their tension, and an irrational part of me was suddenly angry. Why should they feel uneasy? The image of the Betrayer wielding an all too familiar blade..._my_ blade...shouldn't bother them in the least. _They_ had nothing to do with it. _They_ hadn't suffered through it all, only to lose everything. To be reduced to some soul-sucking monster...

I realized that silently berating them all in my head was near pointless, as the only person who would know about it was me. And it wasn't making me feel any better.

"How?" I asked quietly.

"That I cannot tell you." Kaelyn's soft voice was licked at the edges with compassion. "But you and Akachi seem connected somehow. It may not have been an accident that the Shard found it's way into your heart when you were a child."

"That seems like quite a complicated twist of fate for something she no longer even has." Gann said sardonically. "If it was her fate to carry the shard, then the heavens must be in turmoil that she now no longer carries it."

"On the contrary; she may have been chosen by any number of things, including fate. The gods themselves might have seen something in her, or the Sword, even. It entire essence is steeped in rebellion. It was created for a hero who sought freedom for her people." Kaelyn's black eyes focused on me. "The spirits of those who wield the sword seem similar in their design. The Sword is a tool of change...a tool of liberation."

There was a faint pop of electricity, and a whiff of ozone, as my eyes flashed at her, ghostly sparks tossing about my head before dissappearing. "And what am I? A similar tool?"

"I did not mean to offend you. I admire you; you have wielded a powerful weapon with the sheer force of your will. If anyone could bring down the Wall of the Faithless, I believe it to be you." Her words were sincere, fervent, her shoulders squared and her stance firm.

She hadn't understood my meaning; as I looked back at the mosaic on the wall, I realized that none of them really would. They all had their own perceptions of me; Safiya counted me as friend, but subconciously I was something to be studied, experimented with. My life was an enigma to her, and I know that half of her interest in me was spurred from a deep desire to understand everything around her; including strange genasi warriors cursed with spirit-eater afflictions. I was Kaelyn's hero, her chosen messiah; she saw the culmination of her dream in my actions. Things were simpler with Okku; he saw a sliver of honor in me (somehow) and based all of his decisions regarding me on that tiny thread. He had vowed to protect me, and he would, and that was that.

And Gann...

"I believe it to be nonsense. A mere chance, that she was struck by that shard, and mere chance that Akachi wielded it as well. Or did the fates deign it proper that she be carved open by that one's mother?" Safiya's eyes flashed darkly as she met Gann's off-handedly accusing stare. "If so, then I'll have nothing to do with whomever's writing that fate, thank you."

"You cannot run from fate, Gannyev-of-dreams," Kaelyn countered gently. "You cannot escape who you are, and neither can Kushiel."

That feeling touched me again, black and heavy; the weighted knowledge that had haunted me the last weeks at the Keep before the battle, that I was destined to determine the fate of Neverwinter because of the shard in my chest. It was true; I hadn't been able to escape who I was, then; not when Casavir had offered me his heart to ease the loneliness of destiny, or when Bishop had offered a place to run, so that I might escape it. I had declined them both, for I knew that there was a tiny sliver of magical silver nestled against my beating heart that marked me as the only one who would ever be able to stop the King of Shadows, and there was no escape for me.

There was no shard there, now. But deeper still, was the hunger, a heavier touch of destiny than Gith's sword had ever been. My finger curled along the image tiled into the wall, following the familiar arcs and whorls of the blade's edge, and I stepped away, turning my eyes from it with a sense of finality. There was only one way I was going to escape all of this.

"The crematorium; show me."

o o o o o

I wiped my forehead as the last of the ravening spirits dissipated, beaten back by our onslaught. "Well. That was horrific."

"I don't know what it is about crematoriums; they're so eerie." Safiya was examining the face of the furnace, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully up at the skull gracing the apex.

"Perhaps it's the thought that there's tiny bits of burnt people floating through the air around us as we speak." I huffed out a breath, displacing said particles of burnt people from around my head and watched for a moment as the ashes floated lazily through the air.

"What did the spirit say to you, oh graceless leader?" Gann's pale eyes glimmered at me through the darkness; he seemed unendingly amused that my attempt to persuade the ghosts of the furnace to leave peaceably had failed so spectacularly.

"He was a priest of Myrkul, I'd assume; died when the temple was raided. He knew Akachi when he was alive; still, his information was more or less useless." I snorted, and then instantly regretted it as I inhaled a lungful of ash. I sputtered. "It seems like another dead end..."

"Here!" Safiya was bent near the entrance to the slow burning furnace. "I see something in the coals." She cast some unknown (at least, to me) spell on herself, and for a moment her form was surrounded by a glowing red aura; then she reached dead into the flames, and even as we all cried out in shock and alarm, she pulled it back, grasping a burnt, blackened metal sword.

A sword that looked piercingly familiar...

She held out the Sword of Gith to me, her eyes bright from the heat of the furnace, her hand perfect and unburnt. "I believe this is yours."

"But it doesn't feel..." The familiar, magical pull that normally shot through me when I was close to the Blade was absent, and as I moved towards her, I realized why. The metal, the handle...it was the correct shape, but everything else was all wrong...

"A copy." Gann sniffed disdainfully. "Not even a good one, from what I can tell."

"And how would you tell?" Safiya was watching my face as I took it from her, hefting the weight. "From your extensive research on the subject?"

"I have seen images of the blade in Kushiel's dreams, wizardess." Gann's voice was unusually snappish, and I suddenly glanced at him; his mood had been considerably tetchy as of late, but he had suddenly gone from reasonably dramatic to outright irritable. We all stared at him, and he seemed to draw himself up after a moment, his expression smooth and cool once more. "I know what it looks like, how one should feel in it's presence, and this is not it."

There was a strained pause, in which Safiya made an unintelligible but obviously scathing remark under her breath. Kaelyn watched us all impassively, her delicate mouth drawn into a slight frown. Okku lumbered over to me and sniffed at the copied Sword of Gith interrogatively, his lower lip curling slightly. "It stinks like that furnace; those spirits deserved their fate, for cowering in there like mewling cubs." There was a hinted, apologetic undertone to his gruff words, and I touched his regal, colorless snout briefly. It was the first time he had spoken more than a few words to me since the Wells; it was probably the closest thing to a peace-offering I was going to get from him, and he merely nudged me gently with one paw, trying to brush off the touch of my hand. "Go on, get moving, little one. There's nothing else we'll find here, that I'm sure of."

"The lower vault is still unexplored, but my energies are spent. I need to rest." Safiya's voice was smooth and matter-of fact; one thing I admired about her was her ability to shed her irritation at the snap of a finger. "The temple isn't going anywhere; I say we return on the morrow."

"I agree; I do not relish spending long hours in this place." This from Gann, who was already sauntering nonchalantly towards the stairs that led back to the main temple. Scared? Not Gannyev-of-dreams...

My mouth twitched in amusement as he glanced at me. "All right. We'll return to Magda's; I can't argue against a decent night's sleep, for once." As we left, I slung the fake Sword through my belt loop; it felt strange, having the familiar shape their once again, even if it wasn't real. I expected to turn the corner and see Khelgar hollaring at me to hurry up, or Neeshka trying to hurriedly pick through the skeletal remains scattered through the temple while Casavir wasn't looking at her...

"So you've been looking into my dreams, have you?" I asked quietly as soon as I drew level with Gann. We slipped out of the temple and into Shadow Mulsantir, trudging doggedly towards the theater and it's gateway back to the Mulsantir I preferred.

His glance was sly. "They are interesting things, your dreams. I see many faces in them, feel a torrent of emotions attached to each one."

"And which ones interest you the most?" The theater was still littered with the remains of the Red Wizard attack that Safiya and I met with on our first day here; I always gave the bodies a friendly kick whenever we passed by them on whatever misadventure was currently taking us through the Shadow plane.

"The black haired knight; he follows your thoughts with the doggedness of the truly devoted. And the darker man, with the golden eyes...he slithers through them like a serpent, hounds your dreams like a hunting wolf. And you..." His hand touched mine breifly as we approached the gateway spinning in the theater. "You run from them both."

I glanced at him over my shoulder. "Do I? So what am I not running from, wise dream-walker?"

He smiled at me, and the curl of his lips made my heart skip a beat as he gestured me through the portal. "What, indeed?"


	5. On the art of parrying

"From the beginning, people! And Lothario, stop speaking your lines through your nose."

"How can he help it? Have you seen the size of his nose?"

I laughed along with Gann as the indignant hero turned and glared at Amber, grinning behind the curtain. "I'll have you know that in some cultures, a nose of my caliber is considered a sign of virility."

"Sorry, chap, but when I think of virility, an incredibly large _nose_ isn't what comes to mind." Sweet Wallace was dusting off his faded rehearsal costume; they has begun practicing a fight scene which had ended with the handsome actors tangling the long, whippy practice blades around one another. They had attempted to continue the scene, trying to make it look as if they were still fighting as they tugged and pulled and twisted. This effort, of course, ended with one sword flying across the theater and tangling in the curtain pulley, and one actor flailing madly at the edge before falling completely off the stage. A good way to start off a comedy, I thought.

Unfortunately, the play was supposed to be a tragedy. Which, in a sense, it would be if _this_ was the pace being set for the players.

We had been sitting for the past half hour picking through the stew that the dwarven woman had cooked for everyone. My comments on dwarven cooking were thus; it was simple, heavily spiced, and, in my opinion, delicious. Which, of course, meant that Gann had to complain about it as much as posible, and was doing so quite heartily as he sat next to me, his low voiced comments undermining the lines being rehearsed on stage until I wasn't quite sure if Lothario was cursing Wallace for stealing his one true love, or if he was cursing the bland taste of boiled potato, _how the dwarves ever survived past weaning I'll never know... _

"Again!" roared Magda. "Don't make me tell you twice; we have two weeks. Two weeks!"

"Oh please...lighten up Magda, it's not as if this rabble appreciates our talents anyway. Fie on you, rabble!" Lothario shook a mock fist in our direction just as Magda reached up and whacked the back of his knees with her impressively jointed cane. "Ouch! Fie on _you_, my lady...all _right_! I'm going."

The second time through it was slightly better, although it was obvious that the two actors had no idea how to manipulate the thin, swishy swords. I was laughing near hysterically at the expression on Wallace's face as his blade whirled expertly through the air and stabbed him in his own foot.

"This will never do, lady dwarf." Gann's chuckles interspersed his words. "Your valiant heroes fight as if they wield wet noodles, not deadly blades."

"Technically they're not deadly..."

"We could make them deadly, if it bothers you." Magda's voice was edged with threat, and Lothario cleared is throat, staring innocently at the ceiling.

"I may be able to demonstrate a few tricks; I've graced the stages of Rashemen before a few times, myself." Gann stood regally, and I could just imagine the proverbial peacock feathers ruffling as he strode up towards the stage.

"He's also graced the points of many a sword, as well," I said dryly, and Gann whirled around amidst the laughter, looking appropriately offended. I didn't beleive it for a second.

"Well, if you doubt my skills so deeply, Kushiel, perhaps you could assist me? Then I may aide these dullards and assuage your unjust opinions of me all in one fell swoop.

Well...what the hell, why not? I stood and sauntered up onto the stage, taking Lothario's prop-sword and whipping it through the air experimentally. "How hard could it be?"

Famous last words if I'd ever uttered them. And you'd be surprised at some of the things that come out of my mouth when I think I'm about to die.

He came at me with the sudden, graceful speed I'd seen him use on the battlefield many a time, and I countered, and suddenly this simple sparring match was a battle of wits as well as swords. "See how she falls back, thinking to lure me into believing that I have the right of way, the advantage." He lunged at me. "And a decent parry will turn the advantage back to her.."

I parried exactly when the words came from his mouth, and I could feel my eyes narrowing. _How did he...?_

"Then Kushiel will obviously press her attack, as she is not one to patiently wear her enemies down; rather she beats against them like a great howling wind..." My sword succinctly beat against the upraised foible of his blade once, twice, thrice, as he spoke, and I glared at him, breathing a little heavily as he circled around me. "But not everything can be tossed around like a ship at sea, and her impatience will be her undoing, for she wears herself down quickly..." He leapt forward, and I fell into the trap, springing up into an opening that was there one minute, and gone in the next, and then I let out a soft "oof!" as the point of the blade pressed against my ribs, the foil bending. "And thus she is defeated."

Much to my chagrin, the actors all applauded. Lothario was shaking his head. "Well, that wasn't bad. That's _all _we have to do, Wallace old chap, you see?"

Sweet Wallace's eyes were unusually large. "Can I switch roles with Amber, please?"

"All right, you lot, enough is enough. Thanks be to you, hagspawn, for that...ah...demonstration." Magda waved us both back off the stage. "I'll let you know if we need you again, but I've got to get these louts practicin'...gods be damned, two weeks..." The dwarf muttered to herself as she stomped back center stage and hollered "Again!"

I stared up at Gann in the shadows of the small back stage. "How in the hells did you do that?"

"I've watched you fight. Effective, but...predictable. You _are _impatient, you know; you never wait for openings in your opponents. You just...rush in, and create them yourself, by bashing at your enemies like a battering ram."

I bristled slightly. "You know, you don't know everything, Gann." Out of all the mixed feelings that churned in me about the handsome hagspawn, the one surfacing the most lately had been outright irritation, and it was rearing it's ugly head with a vengeance...

He didn't respond right away, just stared down at me for a moment. I held my rigid stance, my arms firmly crossed, but instead of the sharp rebuttal I was expecting his hand came up, cupped my chin. I felt the barest brush of his calloused thumb as it ran against my lower lip gently, pressing against the soft flesh as he tilted my head upwards. "I don't think you quite realize," he said quietly, "just how _long _I've been watching you, Kushiel."

I went very still under his touch. The impassioned dreamscapes and fantasies he sometimes dallied with in my head were one thing, but this was real, flesh-and-blood; I could practically feel his pulse through his fingers, see the slight flare of his nostrils with each intake of breath. His long hair hid half his face in shadow, but the one eye I could see gleamed at me as if it were glowing like one of my own, the light hinting at the blue and green depths in his clear iris. Neither of us moved; it seemed as if the slightest shift would shatter the moment completely. All I could hear was our intermingled breathing; the lines being recited by the actors on the stage were mere white noise, from a world on which I wasn't currently inhabiting. I realized that the moment had stretched on long enough that someone should be saying something, and that the longer we went without speaking the more signifigant it would be that neither of us was saying something...

...and then I realized his head was tilting down, and I thought I was going to burst as every nerve in my body stood alive at the faint, beginning touches of his mouth on mine...

"Kushiel!"

Okku's voice. The great bear spirit was lumbering through the entryway to the theater; I could hear his overlarge footsteps against the dirt floor even though I couldn't see past the curtain, and I let out an exhasperated exhale. _Maybe if I didn't answer..._

"Little one...the Hathran are requesting your presence." Okku's rumbling voice sounded nearly amused. "Immediately."

Gann straightened slowly after the barest of pauses. "And to think," he whispered to me, "for a moment, I had the winds themselves stilled to a breeze..."

I blinked at him, and opened my mouth to speak...and simply shook my head wordlessly, turning and slipping back out into the theater proper, my eyes probably looking a little wilder than my hair, for once. Okku was looking at me expectantly, as were the actors, paused on the stage. "Well," I finally breathed out, my voice still shaky. "We can't keep them waiting, can we?"

"You could. I would almost be interested to see how that would play out." Safiya's voice floated from the shadows behind the bear as she stepped forward as well. She eyed me critically. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"A spirit, of sorts." I glanced over my shoulder as Gann stepped forward from behind the curtain, his expression calm and blank as a slate. "Let's go."

o o o o o

"The Ashenwood? But we have work here, in Mulsantir; we've nearly worked ourselves into the lower Vaults..."

"I understand it is a deterent for you, but you may yet find answers in the wood, and our sisters need the assistance. The outpost is at the brink of annhialation." Sheva Whitefeather's eyes were uncannily colorless, nearly white. "Provide us this service, in exchange for our continued allowance of your..._associates _presence in our village." Her eyes trained a steady bead on Safiya, who answered the look with one of her own.

"We've already provided you with plenty of services, and Safiya is under my protection; you deal with me and you deal with her, by default." I was feeling the beginnings of a tension headache between my eyes. _Witches_.

"You will do this for us." Sheva's voice brooked no arguement. "I do not particularly care if you find my decision fair; you are the current spirit eater, and therefore the responsible party over all things related to the curse until you remove it. Or, more likely, until you die." The witch turned away. "There is a boat at the docks that's been sanctioned for your use; you may take it wherever you need to go, but understand that the Ashenwood will take your highest priority."

I was seething. Like hells she could tell me where I could go and what I could do. I was going into the lower Vaults in the morning, and let the gods save her if she tried to stop me.

o o o o o

The next morning we were sailing towards the Ashenwood.

Sometimes you have to pick your battles. Other times, you simply have to shut up and get on the boat.

I shared this gem of wisdom with Gann. His reply was tart, and quick, and typical him. "I'll remember that you said that the next time the proverbial boat is about to sail off without you."

"Good luck with that."


	6. On Release

Cold, slush, freezing rain, even colder snow; it seemed everything was slowly crystalizing, dying beneath the unforgiving freeze that had gripped the Ashenwood.

The woods were twisted and sickly, and Gann claimed after our first day travelling through them that even his noted tracking skills were being confounded at every turn. The woods and their spirits were not just refusing to speak with him; they were tricking him, intentionally turning him awry, until we had circled on ourselves so many times that we no longer recognized our own footprints; we had spent half a day tracking our own trail before realizing our error, and the cold sank in deeper the longer we stayed.

We were running short on provisions; our fires every night were pathetic little things, pale yellow and sparse, as if the very air were sucking away the life that we had so foolishly brought into the wood with us. It was taking longer and longer for me to grow warm each morning, and by the fourth day I gave up, resigning myself to frozen appendages and a chilled core. It was the least of my worries.

We had found nothing for me to feed on.

I had tried, the first day, to consume a sickly, warped spirit, an offshoot of the decay and malignance that infected the very trees, but it had only succeeded in making me feel worse. I had been supressing the hunger ever since, but I could feel it beginning to hollow me out, nipping at the edges as if the ravenous presence that had replaced my soul was attempting to eat me from the inside out. I had begun failing in battles; me, the stalwart warrior, the fearless swordswoman, the foundation to our offensive combat maneuvers, had begun dropping her weapon, loosing her footing, knicking her blades on armor and hide. I had begun taking stupid, incredibly amatuerish strikes from the wild animals and occasional frost giant that beleagured us, blows that would have made me scoff ten years go at the very beginning of my training. I was weakening; we were running out of healing potions, Kaelyn's spells were only going so far, and my wounds were taking too long to heal. Without a proper spirit to feed on my body had begun giving up on itself, it seemed.

The morning of the sixth day, I had begun thinking about giving up on myself, too. The effort with which I crawled out of my bedroll simply to sit, weary and bleary-eyed at the morning campfire (which sputtered out, twice) was astounding; Safiya, pale faced, her dark eyes drawn and filled with gut-wracking anxiety, shoved the last packet of our rations at me. When I tried to push them away, she threatened to hold me down and force-feed me, and while at the peak of my health she would have been no physical match for me, I considered that in the current situation the Thayvian might very well be able to take me.

"Don't look so smug," I mumbled, as I shoved stale crackers and cheese into my mouth. They tasted glorious. _Was that a bad sign?_

"Only if you at least pretend to look a little less like a walking corpse. I don't care what that...tree thing said, we're looking for a way out of this place today." She yanked her hood over her bald head; one moment out of many in which I didn't envy her her lack of hair. "This forest isn't worth dying for."

"If we can find our way out of it," Gann muttered irritably as he approached the tiny fire. He knelt in front of it, rubbing his hands vigorously over the flickering flames. "I think I may have picked up a trail leading south again; it may or may not take us back to the fort, but it will at least get us away from this forest."

One of the few times our tiny little group was in complete consensus.

o o o o o

A vale found, a hag downed. We were little closer to our goal, but for the brief moments before we had ventured into the hag's frozen caverns we had been considerably warmer in the small riverside Vale. Our spirits had been high when we had encountered the two hathran ghosts and had taken up the banner to destroy the hag in the nearby caverns. We came, we fought...

And then I dropped.

Hours later, I stood now at the entrance to the hag's abode, a thick blanket wrapped around me, my mind a faint buzz. I remembered Kaelyn reviving me, and when my eyes had opened with agonizing heaviness I had been surrounded by a ring of terrified faces (and one large bear muzzle that I couldn't quite decipher an expression from.) It had been a difficult battle, killing the hag, but it had been the first time that they had ever seen me take a killing blow. I could see the scarlet stains marring the near-middle of the hags quaint little cavern floor; apparently most of that old blood had once belonged to me.

It had been a strange feeling, waking up to see them all hovering over me. I didn't remember anything after that fateful blast of magic, no truncated journey to the Fugue Plane or even the faintest sense of awareness. It struck me as I stood there, bundled in my bedclothes and staring at the site of my nearly-avoided death; I was truly soulless. That perhaps I remembered nothing because there had been nothing there to carry on my existence once my body had ended. That if this curse finally consumed me, as it appeared it may very well soon, that it would be the most final sort of death that any adventurer could ever ask for. It was supposed to be frightening; all that energy, that intellect and emotion, everything that I was and had been suddenly ceasing to exist, but instead I found the thought strangely appealing, and that alone disturbed me. My all-encompassing weariness, my aching body and empty spirit weighed on me like the heavy stones on the cliffs above us, and I pressed my forehead against the cool rock wall. _Nothing left even for tears._ What would Daeghun think of me now? I had longed for death a few times in the past, sure; many adventurers like me had been at that end of their rope, the end of despair and desperation, but not like this. Not me, not until now. I was growing weary of constantly struggling, of having to fight with everything I had just for the barest of sucesses. I wondered what Kaelyn would say if I asked her to just leave me the next time I decided to keel over cold.

"You've a morbid taste in pass-times if this is how you've decided to spend your evening."

_Gann_. Of course he followed me in here. He was not one to hover like a worried hen, but the last few days had been something else, hadn't they? "My interest in chantilly lace and finely-woven baskets has gotten me nowhere. Blood and dead hags seems the next logical alternative."

"You've kept your wits, I see." He stood next to me, looking over the scene of our battle hours previously; the knick-knacks and various pieces of furniture, all blasted and scoured by mage-fire and bear claw, the slush in the corners from melted ice and the hags own spilled concoctions. "You should be by the fire," he said lowly, after a moment. "You need to keep warm, more than any of us."

He knew to keep his tone matter-of-fact, as if he were reciting the names of his spirit guides or the ingredients to his healing salves, but the faint edge of concern that laced his words shook something in me, a shiver of doubt or fear. _Or hope?_ "I always thought that when I finally died it would be...well. Something else." How could I explain that I had faced dragons, liches, shadowed Ilefaern guardians that had the potential to destroy entire cities, and I had stumbled against a hedge-powered hag in a hole in the ground? That I was slowly turning from a celebrated hero of a far off land into a nameless nothing that wouldn't even have a mark in the afterlife once I died? I tried to speak again, and made a low noise in my throat, half-way between a sigh and something deeper, more animal and more desperate. He turned me to look at him, his eyes questioning. _His eyes, green like swamp moss and pale blue sky all at once, constantly shifting, never settled, never still, never..._

_Never too empty for tears, after all._

They spilled out, hot and relentless, and my head immediately ducked down into the fold of a blanket at my shoulder. "Oh gods..." I apologized, made excuses, but he turned me away from the Hag's den and walked me up a ways through the tunnels until even the light from her flickering light globes could barely be seen.

"You've no reason to be here," he said again; softer. This was not my sharp-tongued hagspawn; had he died as well?

"I wish you'd all left me," I whispered, my voice choked with weeping and vehemence. "You can't even know what this is-"

"No." He was on me before I had finished my sentence, forceful, warm lips that covered my eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth. "No," he said again, and then there was desperation in _his_ voice, and then we were clutching at one another, fingers scrabbling, mouths crushed together as if we would devour one another whole. There was a crunch of loose pebbles and a moment of akwardly bending limbs and then we were pressed against the earth, torn and worn garb being tugged, yanked, seams splitting and laces snapping. The heat between our slowly uncovered bodies, the twisted blankets and the rumpled clothing as it was trampled beneath us seemed a furnace compared to the chill that soaked the stones beneath us. The thought was hazy; _we should have done this as soon as we got here, it would have been so much warmer..._

Then his bare hands were touching my bare skin; he knelt between my knees as I tumbled back, my weight caught heavily on my elbows. We stared at one another, more naked than removing our clothes would ever make us; we were both scarred, it seemed, some wounds only half-way healed, and not all of them physical. He was lean and widely built, square, solid shoulders that tapered elegantly into a rippled torso and narrow hips. I could see him in the darkness with my air-touched eyes, and I knew he could see me just as clearly; smooth skin, pale with hints of a marine blue shifting beneath the translucent moon-white. He traced a scar near my hip with his finger, the simple touch igniting the skin beneath it; even as I watched, a faint crack and tingle of electrical light followed the stroke of his fingertip. I shivered, inhaling sharply at the sensation that followed, and his eyes gleamed as they met mine.

"That's interesting," he whispered.

"Oh," I replied quietly, "Oh, there's much, much more."

Apparently his wit hadn't died after all.

And then...a hot, explorative touch, searching fingers and a questing mouth; oh, the master of dreams had me, had me quivering and shaking, until the very air sizzled with untamed energy and I was nearly glowing, the veins beneath my skin marking pale, blue-light paths that pulsated with my own heartbeat. My earlier malaise was all but forgotten. Why had I ever wanted to die, when I could have been living like this all these weeks... he kissed me, drank me in and devoured me whole; he seemed to delight in the smallest of sounds that I made in response to the things he was doing to me, he who had claimed immunity from the wiley charms of women.

His mouth found it's way to my ear, and he murmered something in Rashemi, his assault momentarily ceased. I gasped for breath, my voice ragged. "What does that mean?"

Gods, what does it even matter? But his hands slid to my hips, lifting them high onto his sleek thighs. "I said, my _ajaa eteenpäin_." He kissed me fervently, and for a moment I was distracted, unprepared, "that I have dreamt of this for a very long time."

He thrust into me, with an agonized purpose, and my spine bent like a bow as I cried out, my voice richocheting against the high stone ceiling above us. Lightning exploded from our bodies, dancing around us and crackling against the walls. Gann made a near indecipherable sound by my ear, his body shaking and convulsing as the electricity pulsated through his skin.

It took a moment for both of us to still; a faint sheen of sweat glistened over both of us already. "Gann...gods, did I hurt you?"

He shifted slightly, his eyes hovering a few inches from mine. "Yes," he breathed out, his voice threadbare and unraveling at the edges...and then his hips thrust forward again, deliberately forceful...

It was madness. Sheer and unadulterated madness, and we both surrendered so willingly that it was a wonder either of us were ever sane at all. He would subsequently clutch me to him, as if we would both crumble to pieces were it not for his iron grip, and then he would lean back onto his heels, his legs bunching and clenching beneath the backs of my thighs as he rode into me, watching me spill down his lap and writhe against the stone floor. He would master the pace, until a subtle riposte, a slight uplifting of my hips against his, would undo him completely, and he would tremble and shake, demanding that I cease and begging me to keep going. "_Minun rajuilma_," he whispered hoarsely, "My maelstorm..." A faint, high pitched musical note was insistently ringing in my ear, and I realized as I looked up hazily at the hagspawn above me that he was glowing...

Not him. Faint shapes had appeared at the edge of my vision, swirling and darting around the man above me. Feathered wings, velvety tails and dark liquid eyes...spirits, all of them, peering down at me; otter, hawk, boar and badger, stag and fox...they darted forward, dancing between us, ribbons of light and faint, laughing whispers.

_We see you, air-child. Do you see us?_

My eyes glistened, and Gann kissed them, his panting breath warm against my cheeks. "I see..."

_His guardians. His guides._ The spirits that had given him their power in exchange for his protection and his care. They were beautiful, and they slithered around me, laughing, pure joy and energetic abandon. They danced between the flickering lighting, swirling through the silent wind that followed all of my movements. Gann's movements quickened, and it was my turn to moan, to beg, our skin slick and muscles burning...

_Hungry._

A faint discordant note flickered between the cavorting spirits, but they paid no heed. _Foolish things._

He had brought me to the humming brink, and in that crystal clear moment before release claimed both of us, I realized what losing control so completely would mean; innocent spirits, so close to me, so irrevocably tied to the man who chose that moment to presse his mouth to mine. The words to tell him to stop, the rising panic in my throat, were efffectively smothered the instant that our bodies were diffused into climax. I inhaled and my body bucked, molten gold filling me and a bone-deep pleasure exploding through my skin. His essence burst deep within me, filling me with a burning heat; his voice was beautiful in it's agony as he cried out, and my iron-grip on control betrayed me.

_hungry Hungry HUNGRY..._

I was drowned beneath the roaring rage in my ears. It leapt from my skin, as dark and oily black as the previous bolts of light had been pure and brilliant. It snatched at them, a starving pauper at a prince's banquet, howling with triumph as one, two, three of the precious guides were plucked from the air like ripe fruit. The others scattered, screaming in pain and sorrow; Gann was screaming, in horror, the ecstacy of his climax erased by the sight of the woman before him, devouring the very spirits he had sought to protect.

My heart broke even as I lay there and fed. I couldn't stop it. Or wouldn't.

_It felt glorious._


End file.
